[DeTomaso] Windoze, Photography and the march of technology

[David in Durango]

"Had similar discussions with my brother last week about Photography.
Belser enlargers, dodging, dropping your negatives or clips in a dark room
fumbling around to find them on the floor in the dark, fixer slime, the
burn of stop bath in your nose, printing 5 color prints to get the color
right, "F-64 club", what ISO, F-stop mean, etc.....

People in photography today don't have a clue about what any or that is
anymore."

Bwahahahaha, there is a fellow here in town (one of the few that I would gladly teach a few lessons with an axe handle) that thinks digitography is photography.  Hell, the last time he got his fingers wet was the Junior Prom!

I made my first color prints with the dye transfer process.  (Google it if you don't know.)  When Cibachrome (Ilfochrome/Fujichrome) came out I jumped on that tehcnology and (almost) made a living at fine-art photography, positive to positive printing and such non-sense for a couple of decades.  After that technology bubble no longer presented a challenge I regressed to making platinum prints.  Platinum printing is a contact process (if you want an 8x10 print, you shoot an 8x10 negative.  Medium format was 5x7 and the small format was 4x5 -these are inches friends) that involved coating your own paper after mixing the chemicals.  Think buying flower, nuts, raisins and such to bake your own bread instead of the drive up to McDucks for a big mac.  I never quite regressed to wet plate photography - coating your own glass plate on site, shooting the photograph and then processing the glass plate  BEFORE IT DRIES!  Sort of like winding wire around a magnetic core to make a bit for your computer?

Lately my interest is time-lapse "movies" - but digitally. Maybe I'll do a claymation Grand Prix movie? hahahaha.

Knowing the history of technology for your chosen field gives you a head start.  My fabricator can set up a methonol injection for a turbo or blacksmith a tool and anything in between.  Amazing, really . . . . I can't weld and have to buy parts if needed.  (Well, not to toot my own horn, but I AM a wizard w/ cardboard and duct tape!)

I remember punching my own cards for go-tran and fortran programs - but got sidetracked during my days in the Tonkin Gulf Yacht club with photography, beer and hookers.  Most of my money is spent on hot-rods and hookers . . . .the rest I just waste.

Try reading the Umberto Eco novel (the Focault's Pendulum ?) about a guy that is ship-wrecked in the Pacific that has to mentally reconstruct physics, astronomy and most of modern science to figure out where he is . . . .I didn't finish it.

Give me the big rumpa-rumpa carbed V8!  (though, I may be waffling a little)


David in Durango
The last great technological advance in photography was flexible film!

now, back to your regularly scheduled discussions related to driving and enjoying a Pantera!